One in six worldwide has no religion – study

The religiously unaffiliated people make up the third largest group around the world after Christians and Muslims. This group estimates roughly 16 % of the world’s population and is heavily concentrated in Asia and the Pacific.

According to a report conducted by ‘The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life’ the largest religious group is represented by Christians with 2.2 billion people (32% of the world’s population), second largest – Muslims with 1.6 billion people (23%), placing the religiously unaffiliated group in third place with 1.1 billion ( 16%) , followed by 1 billion Hindus (15%), nearly 500 million Buddhists (7%) and 14 million Jews (0.2%). The figures relate to 2010.

People who practice folk or traditional religions are estimated at 400 million ( 6%) , while approximately 58 million people ( 1%) belong to other religions, such as the Baha’i faith, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Tenrikyo, Wicca and Zoroastrianism.

The geographical distribution of groups varies. Christians are dispersed all over the world, the Muslims mostly populate the Asia-Pacific region, Middle East and Africa and the Hindu group is concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region.

More than three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated reside in Asia, the majority in China with more than six-in-ten (62%) of all religiously unaffiliated people, and more than one-in-six people in Europe (18%) and North America (17%).

The study reveals that Czech Republic is the first in the list of countries where the religiously unaffiliated make up the majority of the population, followed by North Korea, Estonia, Japan, Hong Kong and China.